“Lead generation” generally refers to the creation or generation of prospective consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. There has been a recent trend towards lead generation using the Internet. In a typical lead generation scenario, a consumer completes an online request form on a website. When the form is completed and submitted, the consumer's information may be sent to a party interested in the data or alternatively evaluated to match the consumer with one or more appropriate providers. Typically, the lead generation website is owned and operated by one party (the lead seller) while a separate party receives the data (the lead buyer).
Currently, there are no reliable means for a lead buyer to verify when and where an Internet lead was collected by a lead seller. Since the lead seller hosts the web form, the buyer that purchases leads has no control of the form used to collect the lead and therefore may not be able to verify where the lead was collected or if it was even collected on a web form. The lead buyer is unable to verify basic information about the lead and is therefore unable to verify the authenticity of the lead. On what website was it collected? What information was presented to the consumer on the web page? When was it collected? Was it submitted by a consumer from a web browser? What was the IP address of the consumer submitting the lead? To answer these questions the buyer must rely on the word of the seller with no way to independently verify. Because of this basic lack of transparency it is easy for a lead seller to take advantage of a lead buyer by misrepresenting when, where and how leads were collected. For example, a lead seller may represent that the lead was collected on one site when it was in fact collected on another.
As such, there is a need for an improved means for independently verifying the authenticity of leads that are generated from lead generating websites.